


I love you in every moment.

by IrisofParadise



Series: Domestic AU [11]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adopted Children, Domestic, Fluff and Angst, M/M, OC children - Freeform, Veles Mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 21:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20954984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisofParadise/pseuds/IrisofParadise
Summary: In which Matt tells Vladimir that he wants tattoos and it doesn't go over well.





	I love you in every moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Domestic AU. By this point they've been together for about ffive-six years ish.

_ **Hell's Kitchen, NY** _   
_ ** The Ranskahov-Murdock Household** _   
_ ** 2020** _

“I'm thinking about getting a tattoo.” Matt stated, leaving little to no discussion to the subject.

And really there was not much thinking to be done about it. He'd already made an appointment for later that week.

It'd been something he had been thinking about since they had adopted Jack. He loved his kids, they meant the absolute world to him, and he wanted some way to commemorate his family. And getting a tattoo seemed the perfect way to do so.

Touching Vladimir's tattoos at night, tracing them, it always comforted him. So it made sense that he'd want his own. Or so he thought.

But the moment he expressed this thought Vladimir dropped a plate in surprise and quickly snapped out, “No. Fucking hell no, Matvey.”

Matt frowned, not expecting anger in Vladimir's tone. “I'm sorry. What?”

“No-”

“And why not?” Matt interrupted, arms crossing. “You have dozens of tattoos and I can't get just two?” He asked, exasperated at the hypocrisy of it.

Vladimir scowled as he began to sweep up the shattered plate. “You don't need them, Matthew!” He scoffed to himself. “What would you even get? Don't answer, I don't care. Is stupid idea.”

He turned his back to his boyfriend and Matt frowned, not understanding why Vladimir seemed to despise the idea of him getting tattoos so much.

“You do not need tattoos, Matyusha.”

Clearly he wanted the conversation dropped. So Matt made a face but let it go. He'd wait a few days, give Vladimir time to calm down some. Then bring it up again. And Vladimir new Matt would, the lawyer's stubbornness could rival his own, but he still hoped that Matt would just let the subject die.

**~oOo~**

They're in bed together, Matt lying half on top of Vladimir and listening to his heart rate calm down. Matt's lazily tracing one of the stars on Vladimir's chest while Vladimir has one arm wrapped around Matt's shoulders, effectively keeping Matt pressed to him.

“Mm, so, I wanna talk to you,” Matt began, breaking the after sex silence. Vladimir just hummed, a quiet_ go on _. So Matt does. “You remember the talk the other day?”

Vladimir snorted. “Motya, I cannot even remember anything before the last hour right now,” he joked, grinning when Matt scoffed, then pressed a quick kiss to Matt's hair.

Matt laughed softly, eyes rolling, then took a deep breath. Already he expected for this conversation to go about as well as it did a few days prior. “The tattoo conversation.”

Instantly Vladimir is tensing beneath him and his heart races for a moment. “No.”

Matt rolled to lie on Vladimir's chest so that he was staring right at Vladimir and frowned at the other man. “What do you mean 'no'?”

He couldn't help but to lean into Vladimir's touch as Vladimir cupped his cheek, thumb tracing soft circles.

“I mean no, Matyusha. You don't need tattoos.”

Matt wrinkled his nose before stating dryly, “But you have tattoos, Volodya.”

Vladimir snorted, tapping Matt's nose lightly. “Exactly. Can we sleep now?” He didn't wait for a response, just rolled over, gently shoving Matt off of him, so that his back was to the lawyer.

Matt frowned but decided to once again drop the topic even though the hypocrisy of the whole situation made him want to smother the Russian. He rolled over so that his back was to Vladimir's but didn't fall asleep for quite some time after Vladimir's soft snores broke through the silence.

**~oOo~**

Three days pass before Matt brings up the the idea of tattoos once more. This time because he's come home to Vladimir and their children in the bathroom, sink running and Vladimir muttering under his breath in Russian. Matt almost expects that the four year olds have just gotten dirty once again and that Vladimir is just annoyed but that thought is quickly shoved away when he hears Vladimir swear, loudly, and Jack and Vasya sniffle.

The smell of sharpie is nearly overwhelming the closer Matt gets to the bathroom.

“What's going on?” He asks from the bathroom doorway.

“Nothing! Go away!” Vladimir nearly barks out. His yell just makes Vasya break out into tears.

Jack is sitting on the tub's edge, sniffling and blinking back tears. While Vasya is sat on the sink counter with Vladimir scrubbing at her hands and arms with a rag.

Vladimir narrowed his eyes at her. “Stop crying! You wanted to draw all over yourselves, you need to get cleaned! Maybe you won't do it again!” He snapped as he held the rag under the running water.

His tone had Matt concerned. Vladimir did not yell at their children. Not like this anyway. And especially never at Vasilisa. Vladimir hated for their little girl to even frown wrong. While Matt on the other hand was the exact same way with Jonathan.

“Are you going to do it again, Vasilisa Vladimirovna?” Vladimir asked. He didn't even wait for his daughter to say anything, just snapped out, “If you know what's good for you, you fucking won't!” He turned to glare at his son. “And you, Jonathan Matveyevich?”

Jack and Vasya both began crying even harder. The usage of their full names by either parent always made them cry.

Matt clenched his jaw, glared harshly from behind his deep red lenses, and finally stepped into the bathroom. “Vladimir.”

“Go away!” Vladimir snapped, holding Vasya's right wrist in his hand and looking over the sharpie marks. The crown on her index finger was beginning to fade. As were the 'x's. And the barbed wire. He wasn't ready to dunk her or Jack into the tub to scrub the stars and crosses off of them.

The drawings were crap at best but still Vladimir knew what they were. They were childish drawings of his tattoos. Not even just his but also Anatolys, Vera's, even Yulia's. Vladimir wondered for a moment how they had even seen the butterfly on Yulia's body but in the end he found he really didn't care. He just wanted to scrub the marks off of his children.

Matt gripped the back of Vladimir's shirt and tugged. Hard. “Vladimir. Stop it. Why don’t you go cool off in our room and just wait for me, okay? I'll clean the kids up.”

Vladimir didn't answer verbally but instead tossed the rag into the sink and stormed out of the bathroom, leaving Matt to scrub the mock prison tattoos from their children. Vladimir slammed the door behind him and the children let out more cries.

They weren’t used to their papa being this angry especially not at them. It'd been a harmless thing they thought, taking the markers and sitting in their bedroom. They'd practiced drawing some of the pictures on paper. Jack had beamed in pride when he'd perfected their Auntie Yulia's butterfly, or gotten it as close to perfection as he could. And Vasya had giggled and squealed when she'd finally perfected their papa's bear playing an accordion.

Jack had drawn the butterfly onto Vasya's shoulder and she'd drawn the bear onto Jack's arm. They had been so excited to show their papa. Even more excited to tell their daddy. They knew how much Matt liked to trace some of Vladimir's tattoos. Jack's personal favorite was the cross on his papa's chest. It reminded him of going to church and getting to play after service. Vasya's favorites were her papa's stars and when she and her brother had begun drawing out the tattoos she had politely demanded that Jack draw them on her first.

But the moment they'd run from their bedroom to the living room, squealing and giggling and covered in sharpie, Vladimir had taken one glance at his shirtless four year olds and dropped the tv remote. His eyes widened as he'd taken in the crude pictures and memories came rushing forward.

The next thing he'd known his children were crying crocodile tears and he was scrubbing at Vasya's hands, his own shaking.

Both children had 'x's on their fingers. Jack had a skull on the back of his hand, not very well done but there all the same. It made Vladimir think about how it'd look like something Anatoly had done on someone back in Russia, drunk out of his mind. It made Vladimir angry. It made him worry. It made him sick to his stomach.

He and the others in the mafia, they'd _ earned _ those marks. And not by being good people.

His children were too good for those marks. Matt was too good for tattoos.

But now Matt was trying to calm down the crying four year olds and find out what they could have possibly drawn on themselves to make Vladimir freak out the way he had.

He picked Vasya up from the sink counter and set her on the floor and reached behind Jack to turn the water on to get a bath running.

“You guys want bubbles?” He asked gently, smiling in hopes to make them calm down.

It worked. Sort of.

The children's cries had turned into soft sniffles and they were now both sitting on the edge of the tub side by side. Clearly they were not over Vladimir's seemingly random outburst and really, Matt couldn't blame them. He was surprised at it too.

Matt reached under the sink and pulled out the bubbles. Poured some into the tub and tossed in two rags. Then sat down on the floor in front of his children while the tub filled up.

Jack wiped at his face, smearing tears and snot as he did so, and hiccuped. “Papa is mad at us!” He whined loudly, accent thickening as he became emotional.

Matt frowned and gently tugged the child into his lap. “No, your Papa is just an idiot,” he tried to assure his son. He pet Jack's hair and hummed softly. Vasya moved from the tub's edge to sit in his lap too and shook her head, hair flying out slightly as she did so.

“No, Papa is mad! He yelled!” She cried, tears starting to bubble at the corners of her eyes. Her own accent was beginning to grow thicker.

“I'll talk to your father and make him apologize, okay?” He leaned down to press a kiss to Jack's fluffy hair then one to Vasya's. And curiosity finally overtook him. “What did you two draw on yourselves anyway?”

The two children shared a look practically begging for the other to tell Matt first. After Vladimir's exploding on them they weren't sure now how Matt would react.

“I drew Papa's cross on Jack,” Vasya whispered, looking down at her hands and frowning. They'd worked so hard on the tattoos and after only a few minutes of scrubbing they were nearly gone from her hands.

Matt grinned and tickled Vasya. “You did, huh?” She giggled and nodded. “That one is one of my favorites.”

Jack perked up. “Mine too! It makes me think of Sunday school! And how I get to play with my friends after service! And how we get McDonald's after church is done!” He said excitedly, words spilling in a rush.

Matt laughed softly, amused because _ of course _Jack would think of their lunch tradition when he thinks of church. “What about you, Vasi? What have you got?” He asked, reaching over to turn the water off and trying to be careful not to knock his children from his lap.

Vasya frowned as she once again stared at her hands. “I had Tetka Vera's crown on my finger. And Papa's rings. But he washed them away,” she said sullenly. Matt frowned at her tone. But she continued, sounding slightly more upbeat, “Jack drew Papa's stars on me though! And they are so pretty! I drew Dyadenka Tolya's stars on his knees!”

Jack nodded and grabbed one of Matt's hands and brought it to his knee. He helped Matt trace over the marks. “We like them! But Papa... he did not.”

Matt sighed, pulled his kids closer, and tried to think of what to say. He felt that no matter what he tried to say that it wouldn't fix this.

“Why don't you two go on ahead and hop in the bath, okay? I'm going to go talk to your papa while you wash your tattoos away.”

The children gave pouts but nodded, thinking it'd be best to wash the drawings away before their papa saw them again, and clambered from Matt's lap.

“Vasi, let me pull your hair up,” Matt said quickly, tugging his daughter back and picking up a hair tie from the sink counter. The one thing about having a little girl he was finding was that he now had hair ties everywhere. At least eleven were in his office at work. And there was no telling how many other countless ones were just lying around the apartment.

Once the two were in the tub and splashing each other and giggling he left, leaving the door open.

Down the hall his and Vladimir's bedroom door was shut. When Matt entered the room, arms crossing and stern glare in place, Vladimir just rolled his eyes and rolled over on the bed so that his back was to Matt.

“Oh shut up," Vladimir muttered, knowing that Matt would still hear him.

“I haven't even said anything yet.” Vladimir snorted. “Vladimir why did you yell at them like that?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Matt pursed his lips as he walked closer to their bed. “Vladimir. Volodya. They're four. They're kids.”

Finally, Vladimir snapped and turned onto his back so that he was staring up at Matt. “You think I don't know that?!” He hissed out. “Is why I am so angry with them!” He sat up, tugging his shirt off and tossing it across the room. Reached out and pulled Matt into the bed, gripped his wrist and made him touch the cross on his chest.

Then the stars. The bear on his arm. The bomb on his other. The pinup. The epaulette on his shoulder.

Matt just frowned in confusion. He waited a few moments then shrugged, not understanding why Vladimir was having him trace the tattoos. “So?”

“I have been in the mafia since I was sixteen years old,” Vladimir started softly. He shook his head. “I _ earned _ these, Matvey. My brother earned his. Vera, Yulia, Valery and Liliya and Sergei, we all earned our tattoos. And we did not earn them by being good people.”

It took a few moments more before his words sank in for Matt. And then Matt slowly removed his hand from the star he had been tracing.

“Oh.”

He gulped. Tried to think of what to say. But nothing came to mind. Vladimir had never really talked about why he got his tattoos. He'd only told Matt that he was sixteen when he got the bear and that it was his first of many and then left the conversation at that. Sure, Matt knew prison tattoos were a thing. But it'd never crossed his mind, not really anyway, that that's what every single one of Vladimir's were. Now it made sense why the Russian had never told the story behind the marks.

And why-

“That's why you don't want me to get my tattoo,” Matt said, eyes wide.

Vladimir's silence was answer enough.

“Oh, Volodya. Just because I'm getting a tattoo-”

Vladimir glared. “You aren't!”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “I am. I've already made the appointment and I've made up my mind.”

Vladimir scowled and flopped back to lie on the bed. Cursed and swore softly in Russian. And Matt rolled his eyes before standing.

“You haven't even asked what I'm getting.”

“Because I do not care, mudak,” was Vladimir's snappy response.

Matt crossed his arms over his chest once more but nodded. “Fine. But the appointment is tomorrow afternoon, after I get off work. So I'll be home a little late. And you are going to apologize to our children for yelling at them the way you did.”

**~oOo~**

Matt’s getting ready to leave the firm when the smell of Vladimir’s cologne, the sound of his racing heart, reach Matt’s nose and ears before Vladimir is even barging in. Matt just sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes four steadying breaths as he hears Vladimir stomp to his office.

Earlier that morning Vladimir hadn’t said a single word to Matt. He hadn’t come by for lunch as he normally did. And Matt was positive that Vladimir was coming by as a last attempt at making sure that Matt didn’t go get the tattoos.

“Vladimir-”

“I’m coming with you,” Vladimir interrupts quickly, shutting the door to Matt’s office so Karen and Foggy won’t hear them. 

Matt just raises an eyebrow. Vladimir shrugs, looks and feels lost for a moment. He’d had a hundred things he wanted to say. Wanted to tell Matt not to get a tattoo. Wanted to ask why he wanted one anyway and wanted to ask what he was even going to get since it wasn’t like he would ever actually be able to see it. Wanted to tell Matt he was going to be supportive. But nothing comes out.

Matt sighed, shook his head, but says, “Alright. Fine. Let’s go. The place is just a few minutes walk from here.” 

He leads the way, cane tapping as they walk side by side. Vladimir keeps his hands shoved in his pockets even though he wants to take Matt’s hand in his and help lead him as he normally did. It’s not until they’re walking on the sidewalk before Vladimir finally breaks the awkward silence.

“What are you getting anyway? Is not like you can see it.”

Immediately he winces slightly at his own lack of tact. 

But Matt just turns his face down to hide his amused smirk and says, “I’m getting Jack and Vasi’s names.”

Vladimir makes a face. “You are going to get their names? Matvey. Matthew. Their names are long. Why would you do that to yourself?”

Matt rolls his eyes and nudges Vladimir with his shoulder. “Just _ ‘Jack’ _ and just _ ‘Vasi’ _. In braille. I’ll be able to feel the raised ink on me just like how I feel it on you.”

Well, that was unexpected. And it made Vladimir pause for a moment. It’s. … sweet. A nice sentiment actually. 

“Where are you going to get them?”

Matt holds up his left hand. “My wrist.”

And Vladimir snorts from laughing so hard. “Oh, Matyushka! I am now very glad I am coming with you!”

Matt frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“I have been told that spot feels like bee sting! I cannot wait to watch you cry.”

Matt made a face, exasperated but not all that surprised. “You’re an asshole and I hate you.”

They walk closer together now, Matt’s arm twined with Vladimir’s and cane folded up and held in Matt’s free hand. The appointment goes well. And Matt is proud of himself for not crying. Though he did tear up ever so slightly.

The man giving him the tattoo didn’t even have the letter for ‘J’ done when Matt slightly breathlessly asked, “So are we done? I feel like it’s done.”

“Uh no. I got the first two dots done,” the man looked down at the sheet of paper Matt had handed him and counted the dots. “Got sixteen more to go.”

Matt groaned loudly and leaned his head back. “Fuck,” he breathed out, eyes shut.

Vladimir snickered beside him.

It wasn’t even that it hurt that much. Matt was more than used to pain. It was just a different type of pain and the fact that his wrist was sensitive apparently. Add on his extra senses and he was about ready to call it quits. But he was no quitter and he’d made it this far. He could take the rest.

And once the names are done, all eighteen black little dots on his wrist, he’s proudly running his fingers over the names of his children. 

_ ‘Jack  
_ _ Vasi’ _

It comforts him already.

And when they stop by Anatoly’s apartment to pick up their children Matt’s grinning as he shows off his tattoos to his four year olds.

“It’s your names,” he explains.

Jack and Vasya stare at the dots and lean over him. 

“Those make words?” Jack asks, tracing the dots carefully. 

The skin is red and he’s curious but he also doesn’t want to hurt his daddy. 

Matt just nods. Then beams when both his children ask, “Can you teach us how to read it?”

**~oOo~**

Matt finds himself many times tracing his fingers over his Jack and Vasya’s names. It never fails to give him comfort. Many times he’s caught himself tracing them while in the office. Many times while in court. 

Vladimir even seems to find some comfort in a way through touching the dots.


End file.
